Ireland’s “Fair City” soap gets a lesbian storyline

The hit Irish soap opera Fair City is coming up on its twentieth anniversary. So, what better way to celebrate the long run than to include a lesbian-ish storyline, right?

The show featured a gay relationship in 1996, with characters Eoghan and Liam sharing Ireland’s first same-sex onscreen kiss. Now, it’s the ladies’ turn.

Thanks to reader Roisin, we learned that last week’s episode involved Yvonne (Ciara O’Callaghan), who has the reputation as the show’s bitchiest character, coming back from Australia and frenching some mystery woman who comes to her apartment, bags in hand. Someone she met during her years in Australia, perhaps?

This is shocking news for many reasons: First, Yvonne has a history of being involved with a lot of different men. Viewers have seen her get divorced, have various relationships, including one with a man who got her pregnant, which caused her to run off to Australia in the first place.

But most surprisingly, this is the first lesbian(ish) storyline on an English-speaking Irish show. There was an Irish-speaking storyline on the soap Ros na Rún earlier this year, so maybe Fair City is just trying to compete.

Irish readers, were you shocked by Yvonne and mystery lady’s hook-up this week? What do you think will happen?